The course map.
Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Lab Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Lab Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles, gloves, clean handling to avoid contamination; explicit, every time
- Setup — instruments, evidence samples, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup & waste disposal — to standard; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From the crime scene to the courtroom.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · Crime Scene & Evidence Basics | Observation, scene documentation, chain of custody, Locard’s exchange principle | Crime-scene documentation & sketching | The rise of forensic science & Locard (history, reading); careful observation; scale & measurement in a scene sketch |
| 02 · Fingerprints & Impression Evidence | Ridge patterns, minutiae, lifting & classification, tool & shoe impressions | Fingerprint lifting & classification | Galton, Henry & the history of fingerprint identification (history, writing); pattern classification; what a “match” can and cannot mean |
| 03 · Trace Evidence | Hair, fiber, soil & glass; class vs. individual evidence; comparison under the microscope | Fiber & hair comparison microscopy | Locard’s “every contact leaves a trace” (history, reading); microscopy; the limits of class evidence |
| 04 · Chromatography & Chemical Analysis | Separating inks, dyes & unknowns; Rf values; presumptive vs. confirmatory tests | Ink/dye chromatography of an unknown | Questioned documents & forgery (history, writing); measurement of Rf values; reading a chromatogram |
| 05 · Blood & Bodily Fluids | ABO typing, presumptive tests, and the geometry of blood spatter | Blood-typing & spatter-angle analysis | Landsteiner & the blood groups (history, biology); geometry: angle of impact; the probability behind a type match |
| 06 · DNA & Biological Evidence | DNA structure, gel electrophoresis, profiling, and match probability | DNA gel-electrophoresis (dye or simulated) | Alec Jeffreys & the invention of DNA fingerprinting — Pitchfork convicted, an innocent man cleared (history, ethics, writing); biology; the statistics of a DNA match |
| 07 · Ballistics & Toolmarks | Firearms & striations, toolmarks, and the physics of trajectory | Impression & trajectory reconstruction | The physics of the scene (physics); trajectory geometry; comparison microscopy & the limits of a toolmark match |
| 08 · The Case & the Courtroom | Assembling converging evidence, the analyst’s report vs. the court’s verdict, honest expert testimony | Full mock-case evidence workup | Wrongful conviction & the ethics of certainty (history, ethics, writing); reading; presenting evidence honestly to a jury |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Evidence-analysis defense
Analyze a piece of physical evidence — a print, a chromatogram, a fiber, a blood type — and defend the identification, the method, and how certain it is, out loud, under questions.
Timed scene processing
Process a mock crime scene and its evidence set under time pressure — documenting and justifying every conclusion as you go.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.